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The year is 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, and a wagon team of three families has hired the mountain man Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a short cut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days, the emigrants must face the scourges of hunger, thirst and their own lack of faith in each other’s instincts for survival. When a Native American wanderer crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man who has always been seen as the natural enemy.
Michelle Williams is “Emily Tetherow”
MEEK’S CUTOFF is Michelle Williams’ second collaboration with Kelly Reichardt. Her moving and evocative performance as “Wendy” in Reichardt’s critically acclaimed film WENDY AND LUCY garnered her a Toronto Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 2009 and her third Independent Spirit Award Nomination.
Williams’ riveting performance in Ang Lee’s BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN earned her a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award as well as Best Supporting Actress nominations from SAG, Golden Globe, BAFTA and ultimately an Academy Award nomination.
In 2004, Williams shared a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination with her fellow actors from Thomas McCarthy’s THE STATION AGENT for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. In 2005, Williams was honored by the Motion Picture Club as Female Star of Tomorrow. Williams was nominated for a 2007 Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress for her performance in Wim Wenders’ LAND OF PLENTY.
She will next be seen in Derek Cianfrance’s BLUE VALENTINE opposite Ryan Gosling. The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and also screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. It will be released by The Weinstein Company on December 31, 2010. Williams is currently in production in Sarah Polley’s TAKE THIS WALTZ starring opposite Seth Rogen and she begins production on MY WEEK WITH MARILYN in the fall.
Williams’ other film credits include Sharon Maguire’s INCENDIARY, Charlie Kaufman’s SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, Todd Haynes’ I’M NOT THERE, Dan Harris’ IMAGINARY HEROES, Richard Ledes’ A HOLE IN ONE, Ethan Hawke’s THE HOTTEST STATE, Julian Goldberger’s THE HAWK IS DYING, Sandra Goldbacher’s ME WITHOUT YOU and Andrew Fleming’s DICK. Williams was last seen in Martin Scorsese’s SHUTTER ISLAND, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio.
On television, Williams starred opposite Chloë Sevigny in Martha Coolidge’s critically acclaimed HBO movie IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK 2. She also had a six-year run as “Jen Lindley” on the WB’s hit television series DAWSON’S CREEK. The series premiered in 1998 and remained one of the WB’s top-rated shows throughout its run.
On stage, Williams received glowing reviews for her portrayal of Varya in Chekhov’s THE CHERRY ORCHARD at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. She also achieved critical acclaim for her run in Mike Leigh’s SMELLING A RAT at the Samuel Beckett Theatre and her off-Broadway debut in KILLER JOE.
Kelly Reichardt – Director and Editor
American landscapes, and narratives of the road are themes that run throughout Kelly Reichardt’s work. MEEK’S CUTOFF, shot on the dry plains of Oregon’s high desert, offers a vision of the earliest days of American frontier culture. WENDY AND LUCY, filmed along the railroad tracks that surround an Oregon suburb, reveals the limits and depths of people’s duty to each other in tough times. Reichardt’s film OLD JOY is an exploration of contemporary liberal masculinity, set in the tamed wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. ODE, a super-8 retelling of the Legend of Billy Joe McAllister, is set around the creeks and underpasses of the rural south. Her first feature, RIVER OF GRASS, was shot in her hometown of Dade County, Florida. Sun-drenched highways, bus stations and dilapidated motels were the denatured setting for this lovers-on-the-run story. Reichardt is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and teaches at Bard College.
Anish Savjani – Producer
In November 2005, Anish Savjani formed filmscience, an independent film production company. Since its inception, filmscience has produced ten feature films: Kelly Reichardt’s MEEK’S CUTOFF, WENDY AND LUCY and OLD JOY; Joe Swanberg’s ALEXANDER THE LAST, NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS and HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS; Geoff Marslett’s MARS; Bob Byington’s HARMONY AND ME; Spencer Parsons’ I’LL COME RUNNING; and Steve Collins’ GRETCHEN. These films have been nominated by Film Independent for three Spirit Awards. filmscience currently has a number of projects by emerging and established independent filmmakers in production and development, including a new documentary from Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher.
“Reichardt crafts a highly textured narrative that both invokes the mythology of the American frontier and cleverly transcends it.”
- Eric Kohn, Indiewire
“Kelly Reichardt’s most powerful film yet. She immerses us in a mesmerizing world.”
- Christy Lemire, Associated Press
http://www.amazon.com/Meeks-Cutoff-Michelle-Williams/dp/B0057IAPBO
Avant-Garde Western That's Actually Really Good November 20, 2011
By Jessica Winney
Format:DVDThis is a really interesting film. I'm glad that I read about it before I watched it so that I would know what to expect. If you do that, you will probably have a more enjoyable experience because you will be expecting it to be weird. While I agree that the film was slow and that the dialogue was difficult to hear (I, too, had to turn on the subtitles to understand what was being said), there are some really cool things about this film that I really liked. This is probably one of the most realistic films I have ever seen in terms of reflecting what life was really like for settlers during the time period depicted.I loved the beauty and sparseness of the scenery and I thought that the long periods of silence actually helped allow the viewer to experience the visual aspect of the film without having to constantly listen to people talk. I liked the conversations in complete darkness, I thought they were a really neat touch that added to the realism. Without the use of electric lights, complete darkness is what the characters would have experienced in real life and I like the way that was brought to the screen. It cut through the artificiality typically present in film by not making special allowances for the film viewers, like having lighting when it would normally be pitch black.
In addition, the justification for the full frame aspect ratio is one of the most creative that I have ever heard. I read somewhere, either in an interview or perhaps in the notes written on the DVD packaging, that Kelly Reichardt purposely did not use a widescreen format because she was trying to replicate for the viewer the vision restrictions imposed on the female characters in the film by the bonnets they had to wear. The bonnets restrict the wearer's vision from side to side and create a more box-like picture, so the full frame ratio is supposed to, literally, give the viewer the impression that they are seeing the world while wearing one of those bonnets. I also loved the ending, I love how it just ended abruptly and left the story completely unresolved. We never find out if the characters ever find water or if their Indian guide really knows where he is going or whether he is just as lost as they are. I love the final shot of Michelle Williams' face looking through the tree branches as she watches the Indian guide walk off into the distance, seemingly propelled by some otherworldly quality of which the other characters are ignorant. The culture/language clash between the white settlers and the Indian guide is also very well depicted - the Indian guide does not speak English and does not appear to make very many attempts to purposefully communicate with the settlers. He seems more interested in his own internal world than with anything the settlers are doing. Is he crazy and/or lost or is his unusual behavior only able to be understood in the context of his Native American culture, a culture of which the settlers and likely many viewers are largely ignorant? Interesting question to ponder.
This film is definitely not your conventional western nor conventional example of any other genre, for that matter. "Avant-garde" is pretty much the word here. If you can forgive some of its flaws and embrace the full-on realism and accuracy that the director appears to be going for, you might just enjoy this film. It starts out as a mystery, it remains a mystery throughout, and it ends as a mystery. Definitely one to leave you thinking for a long time afterward.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meek_Cutoff
HistoryIn 1845 there were rumors circulating among the emigrants on the Oregon Trail that the Walla Walla and Cayuse Indians might possibly attack the settlers in the Blue Mountains of Oregon or along the Columbia River. Reports of threats came in conjunction with the murder of two Frenchmen in the area.[1] Stephen Meek, the older brother of Joe Meek, was an experienced fur trapper and explorer who made his living as a wagon train guide. Meek was unemployed at the time but was considered to be someone who was familiar with eastern Oregon. When he offered the emigrants an alternate route to avoid the Blue Mountains many decided to follow him.[2] Some 200 wagons and 1,000 people turned off the primary Oregon Trail at Vale and followed Meek into the Oregon desert where no wagons had traveled before
Blazing a new trail
Meek led the wagon train southwest through the Malheur Mountains. They followed the Malheur River for the first two days but were then forced into the hill country. As they progressed the road became stonier. It was so hard on the oxen that several died each day.[3]
Some of the emigrants were not doing well, especially those who were already sick when the train took the cutoff. Just west of Castle Rock and along the North Fork of the Malheur River, a young mother of two small children was losing the battle to stay alive. “Rowland Chambers’ wife Sarah, the Captain’s daughter, had contracted camp fever earlier in the journey and was now critical. Everything possible was done to ease her distress as she lay in the wagon hovering between life and death but alas, to no avail. Sarah breathed her last breath at this camp and was laid to rest beneath the sagebrush.”[4] The next day the grieving husband was left behind with a horse as the train continued to journey on. He went down to the river and found a native stone that he smoothed, then he carved this inscription: “Mrs. S Chambers, Sep 3rd 1845.” It remains one of the few Oregon Trail gravestones in existence.
In 1849, Betsy Bayley recalled this event in a letter written to her sister in Ohio:
We camped at a spring which we gave the name of “The Lost Hollow” because there was very little water there. We had men out in every direction in search of water. They traveled 40 or 50 miles in search of water but found none. You cannot imagine how we all felt. Go back, we could not and we knew not what was before us. Our provisions were failing us. There was sorrow and dismay depicted on every countenance. We were like mariners lost at sea and in this mountainous wilderness we had to remain for five days. At last we concluded to take a Northwesterly direction . . . . After we got in the right direction, people began to get sick.[10]
The search for water ended when Meek climbed Glass Butte and from there he could see Buck Creek 25 miles due north. The emigrants immediately left for Buck Creek but from this point on they were no longer following Meek.[11]
During this period of the journey - while emigrants were driving their livestock throughout the night to water – the John Herren family reportedly found some gold nuggets, which led to the legend of the Lost Blue Bucket Mine. The name came from the story later circulated by some of the emigrants. The Herrens reported that if they had remained at their campsite they could have filled a blue bucket with gold nuggets. This place has never been found, but if it exists it is thought by some to be between Wagontire Mountain and the south fork of the Crooked River.[12]
The train splitsWhen the train reached the springs at the south fork one group turned west while the other continued north. The larger group followed Samuel Parker up to Steen’s Ridge where wagon ruts can still be seen today. Their goal was to follow the Crooked River. The smaller group with Samuel Teatherow continued west along the north side of Hampton Butte and then followed Bear Creek. Meek traveled with this smaller company. With the help of a Native American who guided the group to water for a blanket, they reached the Deschutes River where Bend, Oregon is today, and then followed the Deschutes north. This group suffered more for lack of supplies, so they sent a relief party ahead to The Dalles. The relief party thought it would be a two day journey, but it took them ten days. When they arrived at The Dalles they were in a starving condition and so weak that some of the men needed help dismounting their horses.[13]
[edit] The train reunitesOn September 26, 1845, both groups arrived on the same day at Sagebrush Springs near present-day Gateway, Oregon. They had all traveled a long distance without water, and the whole train stopped to rest on the 27th. On that day Samuel Parker entered in his diary:
"May codent get to water and water was taken to them, 32 in number. Heare we beried 6 persons."
Parker later added these remarks:
"Tuck what is called Meeks cutoff - a bad cutoff for all that tuck it."[14]
Meek continued on ahead of the company, and when he reached Sherars Falls on the Deschutes River he was warned that a father who lost two sons along the trail intended to kill him, so with the help of Native Americans a rope was sent across the swift river, and both Meek and his wife were guided through the water with ropes tied around them. They hurried to the Mission at The Dalles where they convinced Black Harris, a mountain man, to return to the falls with a crew and equipment to help the emigrants cross. In this way Meek made his escape, and the crew sent to help the pioneers arrived in time to help the over 1,000 people cross with their wagons. The wagons were taken completely apart to facilitate the dangerous crossing. Some of the emigrants crossed from the low banks, using their wagon box as a boat and guided by ropes over the swift current. Others used a rope and pulley system above the high walls of the narrows about two miles downstream. It took nearly two weeks to cross everyone in the wagon train. The starving and exhausted emigrants finally reached The Dalles beginning around the 2nd week of October, having suffered 23 known deaths and probably many more.
It is estimated that another 25 of the exhausted emigrants died after reaching The Dalles.[15] The deaths and other circumstances created resentment towards Meek and led to the often used phrase “Meek deserted them in the desert.”[16] But Meek did stay with his emigrants throughout most of the journey.[17]
The Meek Cutoff is one of sixteen historic trails recognized by the State of Oregon.[18] The blazing of the Meek Cutoff led to later wagon roads and the settlement of the eastern and central regions of Oregon.[19]
References
1.^ Keith Clark and Lowell Tiller. Terrible Trail: The Meek Cutoff, 1845, (Bend, OR: Maverick Publications Inc., 1966), 14-19.
2.^ Clark and Tiller. Terrible Trail, p. xvii-xx, 8-12.
3.^ Clark and Tiller. Terrible Trail, p. 25-28.
4.^ Donna Wojcik Montgomery, The Brazen Overlanders of 1845. Bowie Maryland: Heritage Books, Inc., 1992 (Revised Edition), First publication was in 1976 by Donna Wojcik, p.255.
5.^ Robert G. Boyd, Wandering Wagons: Meek’s Lost Emigrants of 1845 (Bend, OR: The High Desert Museum), p. 37.
6.^ Montgomery, The Brazen Overlanders of 1845, p.260.
7.^ James Field Jr. Journal. 1845, “Crossing the Plains,” Willamette Farmer, Portland, Oregon, beginning with issue dated April 18, 1879, and ending with the issue dated August 1, 1879.
8.^ Clark and Tiller.Terrible Trail, p.48.
9.^ Field, Journal. “Crossing the Plains”
10.^ Betsy Bayley, Letter to Mrs. Lucy P. Griffith, 1849 (Portland, OR: MSS 1508, Oregon Historical Society).
11.^ Clark and Tiller. Terrible Trail, p. 54-55.
12.^ Clark and Tiller. Terrible Trail, p. 91-101.
13.^ Clark and Tiller. Terrible Trail, p. 62-89.
14.^ Samuel Parker, Diary, 1845 (Portland, OR: MSS 1508, Oregon Historical Society).
15.^ Clark and Tiller. Terrible Trail, p. 115-119.
16.^ Clark and Tiller. Terrible Trail, p. 138.
17.^ Clark and Tiller. Terrible Trail, p. 138-143.
18.^ ORS 358.057 http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/358.html
19.^ "Oregon House Joint Memorial 6". 1995. http://www.leg.state.or.us/95reg/measures/hjm1.dir/hjm0006.en.html. Retrieved 2008-11-26.
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http://www.oregonhistorictrailsfund.org/trails/showtrail.php?id=7
Significance
The Meek Cutoff is perhaps the most infamous of all Oregon Trail branches. Seeking a more direct middle route across OregonÕs High Desert and central Cascade Range, Stephen Meek, an experienced mountain man, led 200 wagons across the arid plains west of Vale, Oregon toward the eastern slopes of the Cascades. Unable to find water on its intended route west, the train turned north and, after a difficult search, found water at Buck Creek and the South Fork of the Crooked River. By the time MeekÕs wagon train arrived in The Dalles, at least 23 persons had died.
In later years, rumors of a gold discovery -- one bright aspect of the Meek debacle -- inspired many eager prospectors back onto MeekÕs trail. Although gold was never discovered along the Meek Cutoff, per se, hopeful emigrants pushed eastward into the Powder River and Baker Valleys where, in the 1860s, gold veins were indeed located. Establishing the mines and the community services necessary to support them were the first step toward permanent emigrant settlements in eastern Oregon.
Historical context
Tuck what is called Meek's Cutoff...a bad cutoff for all that tuck it. ...I will just say, pen and tong will both fall short when they gow to tell of the suffering the company went through
Samuel Parker, 1845
Stephen Hall Meek was born in Virginia in 1807 to James and Spicy Meek. While in his late teens, Meek's mother died and his father remarried quickly. Meek's new mother, a widow with children of her own, was happy to care for the Widower Meek's family, and in so doing, imposed a new rigor into daily life. High time, the teenage Stephen Meek thought, to branch into a new life and head west. By 1828, Meek joined the fur trade and, with William Sublette, ventured into the Rocky Mountains.
Over the next seventeen years, Meek followed wildlife trails, Indian trading trails, and Hudson's Bay Company trails over much of the west. He joined the great trappers rendezvous and wintered with the Flatheads and "Napercies." He traveled many of the West's significant rivers: the Platte, Salmon, Snake, American, Greybull, Yellowstone, Humboldt, the John Day, Malheur, Owyhee, Columbia, Klamath, and Shasta. He traveled in the company of the great mountain men and explorers of the American West including Jim Bridger, Captain Benjamin Bonneville, and the Hudson's Bay Company's Tom McKay.
In 1842, the fur trade was in its closing years, and Meek found himself in Independence, Missouri. Alone, and with no particular direction to follow, Meek joined an emigrant wagon train bound for the Oregon Country. Under his guidance, the few emigrants who crossed overland that year arrived at Willamette Falls early in October.
At Oregon City, Meek and several of his associates were employed by Dr. John McLoughlin surveying and selling lots along the Willamette and Clackamas rivers. Never one to settle for long, Meek was traveling again the following spring. Subsidized by McLoughlin and the Hudson's Bay Company, Meek and his friend, Loren W. Hastings, lead a party of fifty-three men, women, and children from the Willamette River to Sutter's Fort on the American River in California. Although a number of those who were California-bound turned back midway, Meek saw the remaining travelers to Sutter's Fort and then continued alone to Monterey. After a brief stay in Monterey, Meek continued north to Bodega Bay. There he boarded a ship with intentions to travel the world, but only got as far as New York, via Panama, before a change of heart took him home to Virginia.
By May, 1845, Meek was back in Independence, Missouri, where an unprecedented group of Americans was gathering together to travel to the Oregon Country. Stephen Meek's experience (and perhaps his low bid for services) inspired his companions to select him as guide for the train of nearly 500 wagons.
The Wagon Train of 1845
When the wagons rumbled west from Independence, Meek was accompanied by his new bride Elizabeth. Travel was tedious and difficult. At Fort Hall, promoters encouraged emigrants to travel south to California, taking advantage of Captain Sutter's offer of free land.
While Sutter's promoters encouraged the emigrants, others warned them of the potential of Indian attack along the main stem of the Oregon Trail and of the dangers of crossing the Blue Mountains. Elijah White, returning to Washington DC from the Willamette Valley encouraged the emigrants to try a "new" route. Several turned south toward California, the rest continued west to Oregon.
During this time [after crossing the Snake near Fort Boise] a man whose name was Steven Meeks came along with a company of [Parkers] for Oregon; he said he had traveled the country between his point and Oregon many times and was quite familiar with the route; and that he would pilot us a near way that would save us a number of days' travel, provided that we would pay him for this service five dollars for each wagon on out trail. We consulted with the Manager [Mr. Craigie] at Fort Boise, in relation to this and he informed us that Mr. Meeks had passed the Fort three times to his knowledge, and also that he knew that there was a pack trail, through the country that Mr. Meeks designed going, so the most of us decided to follow him; after going down the river for a few miles we turned up a creek, leaving the old road that was traveled by the trappers.
Samuel Hancock, emigrant of 1845
Nathaniel Olney, a merchant from The Dalles who originally traveled the Trail in 1843 and was among those gathered at Fort Hall, also tried to convince the emigrants of the dangers on the old road. Meek and Olney devised a plan that would save time and bypass the dangers ahead. By traveling directly west from the Oregon Trail's junction with the Malheur River, Meek, Olney and others were convinced that they could connect a route through central Oregon, over the Cascades and into the Willamette Valley. Meek made a rough map of the routes he had taken when he crossed over the Malheur, Owyhee, and the John Day Rivers in 1834 with Bonneville. It was enough to convince about 40% of the emigrants to break from the main wagon train.
While others continued on the main stem of the Oregon Trail, Meek -- with between 750 and 1000 emigrants, 200 or so wagons, and thousands of head of livestock -- set out across the Malheur River, convinced that this was indeed a safer and shorter route for all concerned.
September 3, 1845...At this place are two trails; the fork is in the bottom above the crossing of the creek, and there is a possibility of emigrants pursuing the wrong route. I do not deem it amiss to give some particulars in relation to this road. Mr. Meek, who had been previously engaged as our pilot, but had previously went in advance of the companies who had employed him, and who after reaching Fort Hall fitted up a party to pilot through to Oregon, informed the emigrants that he could, by taking up this stream to near its source, and then striking across the plains, so as to intersect the old road near to the mouth of Deschutes or Falls river, save about one hundred and fifty miles travel; also that he was perfectly familiar with the country through which the proposed route lay, as he had traveled it; that no difficulty or danger attended its travel. He succeeded in inducing about two hundred families to pursue this route; they accordingly directed their course to the left, up this creek, about ten days previous to our arrival at the forks.
Joel Palmer, 1845
